He was the only coach that's been able to get this team to show up night after night for almost 20 years, and by far the most difficult team to play against we've seen. No team was able to walk over over, and that all changed over night. If we had a coach of Martin's caliber earlier we could have won a cup, instead we had guys who were not qualified to coach in the NHL like Therrien and Carbo.

This is complete nonsense. I'm sorry. What games have you watched? Under Martin the Habs played a passive style. They never dictated the pace of the game.

As far as your 20 years comment. How much talent did the other teams have prior to Martin coming aboard? How many vet coaches did we have in that span?

The guy was a decent coach, but some of you act like he was the 2nd coming of Scotty Bowman.

Plenty of non-expansion team picked in the lottery before. Not sure where you're going with that..

Martin got us to the conference finals too..

Martin had almost nothing to do with us making the finals. Giving up 40-50 shots a night is a losing formula, we got lucky for a couple rds. Nothing else, Cammy's through the roof Shooting % and Halak's ridiculous net minding were both 100% unsustainable.

Funny how people always reference this, during those 3 series under Martin. The habs looked the worse they had ever looked under him.

Even this season, we were losing, but we certainly weren't giving up twice as many scoring chances as we were generating like we did in the ECF run. He did nothing special during that run. He could of got up and left the arena, went out to a movie and got the same results.

Martin had almost nothing to do with us making the finals. Giving up 40-50 shots a night is a losing formula, we got lucky for a couple rds. Nothing else, Cammy's through the roof Shooting % and Halak's ridiculous net minding were both 100% unsustainable.

Funny how people always reference this, during those 3 series under Martin. The habs looked the worse they had ever looked under him.

Even this season, we were losing, but we certainly weren't giving up twice as many scoring chances as we were generating like we did in the ECF run. He did nothing special during that run. He could of got up and left the arena, went out to a movie and got the same results.

That holds as much water as saying he was the main factor for our run.

It's not just Cammy and Halak either. Those two played a very crucial role. But so did Plekanec who had to shutdown the two best superstars in the NHL, Ovi/Crosby. Not to mention Gorges and Gill as well. Hammer and Spacek also played their role well.
Let's not forget PK coming in as well and stepping up hugely for us.
Moore/Lappy/Moen are not to be forgotten either.

So, all the guys were together pushing for a common goal. Everybody seemed on the same page. They had a gameplan, good or bad, they had one and executed it well.
Some people call that coaching.

Everybody that was involved in that run deserves credit. You can have fun and starts splitting up who deserves how much credit, but every single person that was part of it should be mentioned.

People have to stop going to extremes in order to prove a point. It's ridiculous.

How did Martin turn us into a lottery team? We were never anywhere close to a lottery team with Martin. We did almost reach the cup finals with Martin though, but I guess all expansion teams do that.

It was ALL HALAK , nothing to do with Martin getting us to conf finals.What Martin did do is have the worst start in Habs history since what year? If Martin stayed the result would be the same(no playoffs), cause the players would have done no different ...Listen to Gill he said when JM got canned the players wait for change, when it was apparent RC was told to be like JM ,the players showed the discontentment ..

Spacek

Quote:

I think we played too much of a defensive system, I didn’t like that. I think it was even boring to watch us, to be honest. To be very honest. Come on, at home, we play like this? I think it was boring a little bit. At the end of the night, if you win 2-1, nobody cares. It’s a win. But there weren’t too many games that we win 5-2, 6-4, wide-open games in which you just had fun. There weren’t too many like that.

The run we had in my first year here (2009-10) was very satisfying, even though I was injured a little bit…it wasn’t so much the coaching as the players all coming together. You have a couple guys in the room who had won the Stanley Cup, yes, but after the all-star break, we really started to play like a team. Before that, we were trying to figure out what we could do, what kind of role we could have in the team.

At the break, we were still outside the playoff (cut), and we started to really play like a team. (Goaltender) Jaro Halak started to play really, really good for us. He took us there. But we were all really good with each other. That was something where you could see the relationships build. We started to play for each other and that was just great.

Correction: Halak got us to the conference finals. Habs were outplayed most games in those series and had it not been of Halak's heroics, the team would have been out in the first round.

Amazing how quickly people forget (or conveniently omit) the reality that we barely even made the playoffs that year, squeaking in on the last weekend as much thanks to other teams falling short as to our own "success".

A year later, 6th place / first round exit,
a year after that, out of the playoffs heading into December.

All of this, with a cap spending team that went out and spent like crazy to bring in talent/cup experience for him to work with.

How the same posters can on the one hand argue that gainey/Gauthier did a good job managing the team, while at the same time praising JM, is beyond incomprehensible.

8th, 8th, 6th, 15th... That's the progression since the 08 fluke run to the conference title.

Columbus might celebrate that, but in a market like montreal that rightfully led to mass firings.

Two upset 7 game series (on the backs of 2 of the best individual playoff performances in history) and getting completely blown out of the conference finals doesn't obscure the failure, except with the committed kool aid bunch

Correction: Halak got us to the conference finals. Habs were outplayed most games in those series and had it not been of Halak's heroics, the team would have been out in the first round.

I'm going to have to disagree....Yea Halak was great but it was the style of play that enabled a lesser skilled team like Montreal to beat the Caps and Penguins. Also I was always impressed with Montreal's penalty-kill and defensive play under Martin....sticks were almost always in passing lanes and tons of shots were blocked

Martin utilized his players very well in some cases. The Gill + Subban pairing was excellent in the 7 game series against Boston.

It's easy to say he was a lousy coach after he's gone but he got the Habs further than they had been in better part of 20 years.

He appraised the roster that he had and in my opinion did a good job with it for the most part.

Amazing how quickly people forget (or conveniently omit) the reality that we barely even made the playoffs that year, squeaking in on the last weekend as much thanks to other teams falling short as to our own "success".

A year later, 6th place / first round exit,
a year after that, out of the playoffs heading into December.

All of this, with a cap spending team that went out and spent like crazy to bring in talent/cup experience for him to work with.

How the same posters can on the one hand argue that gainey/Gauthier did a good job managing the team, while at the same time praising JM, is beyond incomprehensible.

8th, 8th, 6th, 15th... That's the progression since the 08 fluke run to the conference title.

Columbus might celebrate that, but in a market like montreal that rightfully led to mass firings.

Two upset 7 game series (on the backs of 2 of the best individual playoff performances in history) and getting completely blown out of the conference finals doesn't obscure the failure, except with the committed kool aid bunch

My thoughts exactly. Add to that the fact that he didn't believe in tough players to defend his skilled guys and you have a pretty bad mix.

That holds as much water as saying he was the main factor for our run.

It's not just Cammy and Halak either. Those two played a very crucial role. But so did Plekanec who had to shutdown the two best superstars in the NHL, Ovi/Crosby. Not to mention Gorges and Gill as well. Hammer and Spacek also played their role well.
Let's not forget PK coming in as well and stepping up hugely for us.
Moore/Lappy/Moen are not to be forgotten either.

So, all the guys were together pushing for a common goal. Everybody seemed on the same page. They had a gameplan, good or bad, they had one and executed it well.
Some people call that coaching.

Everybody that was involved in that run deserves credit. You can have fun and starts splitting up who deserves how much credit, but every single person that was part of it should be mentioned.

People have to stop going to extremes in order to prove a point. It's ridiculous.

Yes, they all manged to do such a great job that we had a shot differential of -7, and ovy had 10 points in 7 games, quite the shut down job.

Hey, they won, that's goal and I am not trying to take that away from them, but Martin had very little to do with it. Getting peppered with shots and giving up scoring chance ratios of 2-1 is not a winning recipe. We got lucky, the team and Martin. End of story.

I love the narratives about how we buckled down and shut down their top players and played sound D, but it simply isn't true. We played horribly and won in spite of the coach and the badly outmatched team.

The writing was on the wall. In a seven game scenario **** happens, but that was not a repeatable model for success.

I'm going to have to disagree....Yea Halak was great but it was the style of play that enabled a lesser skilled team like Montreal to beat the Caps and Penguins. Also I was always impressed with Montreal's penalty-kill and defensive play under Martin....sticks were almost always in passing lanes and tons of shots were blocked

Martin utilized his players very well in some cases. The Gill + Subban pairing was excellent in the 7 game series against Boston.

It's easy to say he was a lousy coach after he's gone but he got the Habs further than they had been in better part of 20 years.

He appraised the roster that he had and in my opinion did a good job with it for the most part.

The sticks were almost always in the passing lanes except for the 40-50 times per game that shots ended up on Halaks net.

The sticks were almost always in the passing lanes except for the 40-50 times per game that shots ended up on Halaks net.

That's what happens when you play a team that is significantly more talented. You can do things right and still lose.

The Capitals had the best goal-scorer since....? They had Backstrom, Green, and Semin as well.

But Montreal won the series because every player bought in and they did get a great performance by Halak.

I'm not saying Martin was a perfect coach because everyone has his flaws and is human. I think he's great at x's and o's but he's lacking in the communication department. That doesn't mean he's a "garbage" coach.

That's what happens when you play a team that is significantly more talented. You can do things right and still lose.

The Capitals had the best goal-scorer since....? They had Backstrom, Green, and Semin as well.

But Montreal won the series because every player bought in and they did get a great performance by Halak.

I'm not saying Martin was a perfect coach because everyone has his flaws and is human. I think he's great at x's and o's but he's lacking in the communication department. That doesn't mean he's a "garbage" coach.

Sorry but I still don't believe being outshot 96-37 in game 6 and 7 against the Caps was part of the strategy. How is letting your goalie face almost an average of 50 shots per game in the last 2 elimination games and wish he pulls two miracles part of the strategy?

Thing is, if there was more good things to talk about than bad things....we'd be winning. You lose, you bash. You win, your sort out the great things. Human nature. But come on. You go on in a year that was a circus at best, and then expect some super positive comments? Besides, any chance that if you really want to bash somebody, you praise somebody else in the process? Any chance that with the idea of bashing Gauthier, for example, you mention how Martin made the best of what he had, which to me, is not far from the truth as far as I'm concerned, seems that is not shared by everyboyd.

Your example isn't that great. Thing is, it's your ex that already mentionied loud and clear that you weren,t good enough. So it's a human thing to respond unless it makes you weak. So your new girlfriend knows the 2 sides of the story. Your ex story which says that you are less important than Kaberle. Or your story which says that you would have done a better job, which is not what Spacek is saying, I know, but on thet point of Spacek "defending" himself like you are saying. Mind you, in that specific case, people loved to point the Latendresse, Lapierre, Kostitsyn or others on immaturity when they commented them leaving. So what do we say for Spacek? Still working on that issue?

Sorry, but in that specific case, when EVERY guy that left that Ex are saying almost the same exact thing, it has to mean that they might have been somehow right. I do agree though that athletes are not always the best judge of their own performances. But when everyobdy is in sync with their comments, it's tough to forget it...

True that we should not believe everything we hear. Thing is, at one point, you will hear someething that feels like what you are thinking as well. Strangely, you'll THEN choose to believe that. So the human nature is to believe what we want to believe based on our bias on the subject. Just normal to do so.

Correction: Halak got us to the conference finals. Habs were outplayed most games in those series and had it not been of Halak's heroics, the team would have been out in the first round.

Correction, it's a team sport and it's completely ridiculous and overly simplistic to put it solely on the goalie. It only shows your inability to see pass the superficial outlook.

Without the D blocking as many shots, without the 5 man crew making sure Halak gets to SEE every shot, without Markov, without Subban, without Gorges, without Gill, without Moore, Cammalleri and Gionta scoring ALL those timely goals, there is no 'super' Halak.

And for that to happen, you need a systemized approach.

May I remind you that Halak got often times saved by his teamates. One can't do without the other and vice versa.

Mediots are doing the same thing right now with Quick, not understanding how ridiculous he would look if the D weren't doing their thing.

More and more, I feel individual awards in hockey are useless. They paint a static picture, the wrong one at that, in people's mind that one player can MAKE the entire team, when that concept has been long dead since the mid-90s.

Sorry but I still don't believe being outshot 96-37 in game 6 and 7 against the Caps was part of the strategy. How is letting your goalie face almost an average of 50 shots per game in the last 2 elimination games and wish he pulls two miracles part of the strategy?

As long as he can see the shots, the number of shots is irrelevant.

Usually a team has 1 to 3 proportion for scoring chances vs shot. Washington had about a 1 to 5 ratio in those two games. Halak could see almost every shot, which made his job a lot easier than having to stop what people perceive as 20-25 scoring chances.

Usually a team has 1 to 3 proportion for scoring chances vs shot. Washington had about a 1 to 5 ratio in those two games. Halak could see almost every shot, which made his job a lot easier than having to stop what people perceive as 20-25 scoring chances.

Oh please, almost 100 shots against in 2 games.. and add all the blocked shots.. the Habs was being dominated. I remember those two games really well. Halak was god like. The Caps had tons of scoring chances. Ovi had 18 shots in those 2 games and Semin had 16.. two of the best goal scorers back then.

Here's the highlights of the game 6 and 7. Halak did not have an "easy" game like you seem to pretend. Lots of the shots were point blank.

Oh please, almost 100 shots against in 2 games.. and add all the blocked shots.. the Habs was being dominated. I remember those two games really well. Halak was god like. The Caps had tons of scoring chances. Ovi had 18 shots in those 2 games and Semin had 16.. two of the best goal scorers back then.

Here's the highlights of the game 6 and 7. Halak did not have an "easy" game like you seem to pretend. Lots of the shots were point blank.

I never said or pretended it was easy, what I am saying is that no goalie can get that type of performance without its D being on pace and giving a lot of help, and they were. You should watch the entire two games and see how many plays the D broke in those two games. The caps were often getting off-shots from their broken plays.

The prevailing sentiment is that the Canadiens have turned an important corner in their rebuilding with the hiring of Marc Bergevin as general manager to replace Pierre Gauthier. The Gauthier era was confounding, to say the least. What was your take on it?

(Almost 15 minutes of Gill’s reply was off the record. What follows was on the record.)

I think the way Pierre ran the team is what they’d teach you in business school about managing people. I think he went by the book, that that was kinda the funny thing (given the nature of a hockey team). … I’d ask Pierre every day why we had to do things a certain way, kinda have fun with it. But he didn’t mix very well with the team so communication was different. He’s a different person.

In Nashville, I’d go to (GM) David Poile, who’s the nicest man, so up front, and he’d say, “We’re all in this together, what should we do? Do you have any ideas? Do you think we handled this situation right?” It was a different world. I think Bergevin is going to be great. I don’t know his track record after his playing days, but as a player he was a first-rate beauty, a clown. … I think it’s going the right way in Montreal. I hope it is.

I read where Spatcho said we didn’t have a system that fit us. I think Jacques put something out there then let us handle everything else. He let the older guys kinda take control – Gio, Cammy, Gomer, me, Moen… all these guys who’d come in (as UFAs or, in Gomez’s case, by trade). I thought we didn’t really know what to do, but it was our team. Then we had success because we worked as a team, that’s how we got into the playoffs (going three rounds deep in 2009-10).

The message (from the coaching staff) was we need to play as a team with their system. I tried to preach it but the hard part was we didn’t play to guys’ strengths. With Gomez, you don’t expect him to chip it up the boards, you want him to come back and pick it up. If he can’t do that, he can’t be effective. With me, I have to do what I do.

There wasn’t a huge difference in the system of (Nashville coach) Barry (Trotz), but the D always stay together. You don’t have a forward in the middle. (Laughing) Basically, I couldn’t even tell you what we were running. But the D stayed together. If the puck goes this way, I go to the boards and my D stays with me. …

This was my first time playing in the Western (conference) or maybe it was the team, but I felt a lot of times I had more time with the puck. There were subtle differences.

Did Gauthier put Randy Cunneyworth in an impossible position, parachuting him in to replace Martin?

I guess so. It was completely unfair. I think that’s the hardest thing about Montreal – you can’t just go for the best guy for the (coaching) job. You’re the GM and you have a guy who doesn’t speak French and he’s the clear best for the job, but you can’t hire him. That’s got to be the most frustrating thing. I don’t care if the coach spoke only Russian. If he’s the best coach?

Some (in the media) get fired up and talk about it. I think Cunney took the job as kind of a puppet. I don’t think he had carte blanche to do whatever he wanted to do.

I think the hard part for us as players is that we had a coaching change, but nothing changed. Gomer was excited: “Now we’re going to play!” That’s what you need, you have a coaching change and you go from the doghouse to a new life. Guys who weren’t in the doghouse say, “I have to prove myself.” That’s why you get a jump and everyone kind of picks up their game. But for whatever reason, Cunney said, “I believe in the system, let’s go with the system.” I like Cunney, I think he’s great. I just don’t know if he got to (call his own shots).

Cunney was very good about it and we joked around some. I guess I don’t understand it because I’m not French. Maybe if I was I’d have more (stake) in it. But I just want to win. If we’d started winning, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.

They’re really good. If you stop and take a picture, you can be there forever. But if you just say hi, people have been great. My daughters don’t like it too much. We go and get ice cream and I do 20 minutes of signing.

My 7-year-old’s quote last year was, “I can’t wait to go (home to) Boston where no one cares about you.” Thanks, hon. But it’s so true. Boston people ask me, “What are you doing nowadays? You played for the Bruins, right? What are you doing now?” Last summer I said, “I played for Montreal, remember we played seven games against the Bruins?” And they said, “Oh really, you were out there?” In Boston, if you don’t play for the Bruins, you’re dead.

Amazing how quickly people forget (or conveniently omit) the reality that we barely even made the playoffs that year, squeaking in on the last weekend as much thanks to other teams falling short as to our own "success".

A year later, 6th place / first round exit,
a year after that, out of the playoffs heading into December.

All of this, with a cap spending team that went out and spent like crazy to bring in talent/cup experience for him to work with.

How the same posters can on the one hand argue that gainey/Gauthier did a good job managing the team, while at the same time praising JM, is beyond incomprehensible.

8th, 8th, 6th, 15th... That's the progression since the 08 fluke run to the conference title.

Columbus might celebrate that, but in a market like montreal that rightfully led to mass firings.

Two upset 7 game series (on the backs of 2 of the best individual playoff performances in history) and getting completely blown out of the conference finals doesn't obscure the failure, except with the committed kool aid bunch

Couldn't have said it any better. Do people forget that we got obliterated in the ECF by Philly?